Dance, God Damn it. Dance

This is our hollow place.
This world that says a badge makes a hero,
that victims are thugs,
that does not remember Tina Modotti,
that has forgotten Emma Goldman,
this amnesiac, flattened landscape
of steadfast plastic and manufactured desire,
this Titanic an inch from hard ice,
this death rodeo,
this land that elevates trendy parasites to high office
and discards the truly good,
this nation that hated Eugene Debbs and murdered Joe Hill,
that extinguished Martin Luther King on a Memphis balcony
and Medgar Evers in his home,
that blew Addie Mae Collins
and Denise McNair
and Carole Robertson
and Cynthia Wesley
to pieces,
that screams the name of Jesus
as it lets its children live in squalor
and praises God as they die in shame,
this blight, this cancer, this ugly scar.
This scab heaven.
This is our hollow place.
This is Orlando Charleston Sandy Hook
Aurora Boston Columbine Virginia Tech
Baton Rouge New York Vietnam Iraq
your house at the end of the lane.
This is headline and story.
This is Joe McCarthy and his questions.
This is earned darkness.
This is the sky breaking to blood.
This is tainted pleasure and all the rotten eggs you can eat.
This is the March of history and the revolution that never happened.
This is a monkey with a gun.
This is what they will allow.
This is what makes us happy.
This is music and liquid flesh.
This is the Hot 100 and the Host that Loves You Most.
This is the rule.
This is our hollow place.
This is pure sex and death.
This is the hood you wear.
This is your shackle.
This is what they give and what we take.
This is slow starvation.
This is our hollow place.
This is our war.
This is our 1930s dance marathon and no one wins.
This is tomorrow's bread line.
This is the unseen hand.
This is politics as usual,
the opium of the masses,
the murder of art,
the big win for the Gipper,
the girl you wouldn't give the time of day and the heart inside her.
Remember your parents.
Remember the Mother Church and the Fatherland.
Remember the party.
Everything for the good of the party.
It is standard procedure.
It is our hollow place.
We know all of this, but we jump to the whip with bright, shining faces.
This is our hollow place.
Remember your function:
Dance, god damn it. Dance.